-- Thought Food --
-- Coneridge Series, Chapter 9 --
 
-- Contains: Soft Non-Fatal Oral Vore, Unwilling Prey, Willing Prey, Male Pred, Female Pred, Digestion, Sex, Revivification, Aftermath of Violence, Blood --
 
 Bluefire, the shiny houndoom leader of the Rescue Team True Flame, had just completed her explanation on what the seeds the team had recently received were for. Most of the team members had never even heard of reviver seeds before, and none of them had seen one. But all of them understood how useful the seeds could be for anyone ending up in a risky situation.
 
 And some of them, like one of the other houndoom, named Grey-eye, saw other possibilities as well. After Bluefire had finished with all the other matters and allowed them to leave to complete the tasks they had been given, Grey-eye went to ask her if he could have the two seeds that by all means were his share. The team had been given thirty seeds, and with fourteen members each would get two, the extra two kept to replace the first used ones.
 
 "I don't believe you have any missions today" was the blue and orange houndoom's answer. "Why would you need your seeds now?"
 
 "To tell the truth, I was thinking of making an experiment" Grey-eye answered truthfully. He had heard about the seeds before, from a friend who shared some of his interests, and knew something of the seeds capabilities. But in her explanation Bluefire had warned the team of the seeds potential to fail, something which Grey-eye hadn't heard of before.
 
 "An experiment? What kind of experiment?" his team leader asked, seeming genuinely curious.
 
 "I want to find out whether or not the seeds can save someone from being digested alive, and/or if they just bring the pokemon back to get digested again" he replied, again truthfully. What he didn't say was that he had heard of the seeds being capable of bringing pokemon back from what remained of them after digestion, or even of having them revive a pokemon and moving them outside of the stomach that had caused their death. He much wanted to find out which of the two would be the case here, or if the seeds really worked at all.
 
 "That is a rather specific situation, isn't it?" Bluefire wondered, looking somewhat doubtful.
 
 "And yet something that often happens to smaller pokemon, and that might happen to us if we fought larger pokemon, such as the milotic which caused trouble to the floatzel some time ago. She had a preference for struggling food, it would seem" he told, fascinated that he could tell the truth and still get what he wanted. He hadn't realised that he would actually do a service to the team with what he was planning. A nice bonus.
 
 "Hmm..." Bluefire pondered the issue, her spade tail whipping up and down as she thought about whether it would be worth using some of their limited supply. Indeed, there would be no spares left. And yet...
 
 "Fine. I'll give you your two seeds for that. But I expect that you will come and and give me a complete and detailed report on what you did and what results you got. Otherwise I'll consider you to have used your share for no good reason, and you'll have to work hard to get more. Understood?" she pointedly asked, not entirely unaware of Grey-eye's habits.
 
 "Yes leader. I understand, and will do as you ask" he answered. This time it wasn't the truth though. He would give a report, but it would be neither complete nor entirely accurate. He doubted that Bluefire would appreciate what she read if he gave her an unabridged and unedited report.
 
 "Good. And now, there's one more thing you have to do to get the seeds" she told him.
 
 "And that is..?" he asked, wondering what she had in mind.
 
 "You'll have to figure out how to get them out of here" she told him, nudging one of the two little bags on the table next to her, before leaving to handle other matters.
 
 After some trying, Grey-eye found that the best way to do so was to reach inside one of the bags with his paw and move it around until one of the seeds stuck between his toes. Repeating that gave him two seeds out of the bag and on the table, from which he could sweep them down on to the little bag he carried around his neck. He felt tempted to take an extra seed or two, but knew that Bluefire hadn't left him as unobserved as it might seem. She always seemed to know what happened inside their HQ, no matter how much the team members tried to keep her in the dark.
 
 But that was okay, he thought as he left the building and stepped out on to the market square. He wasn't planning on experimenting inside the HQ anyway. A definite no to that. Instead he was heading for his own house by the river. He would leave the seeds there and then proceed with acquiring the test subjects.
 
 The wicked smile on his canine face scared away many a visiting wilderner, but he cared little. By the time the sun started falling, everything would be ready for the best evening ever.
 
-----
 
 Restraint, Alder reminded herself while flying over the plains that extended as far as the eye could see to the east of Coneridge. With the drought the talonflame's usual hunting tactic of setting the grass on fire to drive her prey on to the open was too dangerous. She had to remember that. She had already gotten in trouble when a blaze she had started after a frustratingly bad day of hunting had started spreading towards Coneridge, forcing her to go and ask the town's floatzel for help. Six of them had ran to fight the fire, managing to bring it down in an hour.
 
 But they hadn't been happy about having to spend their time in such a non-productive manner, and the town guard had let her know that if she caused another such incident, the town could well put a reward on her head with the Guild. At the very least they would want to tear off the ring hanging around her left leg, removing her citizenship.
 
 So the fiery bird kept her flames inside of herself, and tried to find any prey careless enough to leave themselves exposed. But her prey wasn't co-operating. She had spent the whole morning and much of the day in the air, the only prey that she had seen refusing to leave the security that the sparse coverage of bushes and the occasional trees gave them. If this kept up she would have to end the day empty taloned and empty bellied, forcing her lover to buy her a meal. Such an eventuality would hurt her pride, especially since it would ruin the plans they had for today. Usually it was her lover who failed in his hunt if either of them did.
 
 Indeed, were it not for the dry and warm weather she likely would have admitted failure already. But even as the drought had made her hunting harder, it also made it more pleasant. The air felt pleasant as it parted before her, slightly ruffling her flame like grey and red feather pattern, not biting into her skin like colder air might have. So, while frustrating, her hunt wasn't intolerable.
 
 Gliding in the air for another hour, just wondering if it might be for the best to call it a day, she finally saw it. Half a mile to the north, three hundred feet below her, at the edge of a stream running from north-east to south-west, a marill rose from the water. Its back was towards her, as it shook the water from its fur, the ball at its tail waving from side to side enticingly.
 
 Slowly, avoiding beating her wings, the talonflame started to glide towards the small blue shape. It bounced up the bank, towards the grass there, but she knew where it was, and there was no cover significant enough to hinder her strike nearby.
 
 Even as the marill bounced amongst the grasses, she started her dive. Alder's speed increased fast as her distance from the ground dwindled, the marill now hidden but still where she had seen it jump to, for the grasses hadn't shook further. At the last moment she pulled her dive to a straight glide, extending her legs, her talons turned inwards to avoid cutting the pokemon apart. And nearly before the sudden sound from her wingbeat could reach the blue water mouse's round ears, making them flicker, her feet impacted the marill.
 
 It made no sound as it got launched away, tumbling along the ground. Alder angled her wings to rise again, killing her remaining speed and circling back towards the direction the little pokemon had bounced to. She landed on the ground near where the marill should be, and started searching. It was a good thing that she had got in a good hit, for it took her many minutes to find the pokemon amongst the tall grass. Not only did she have to keep an eye on other predators that might be interested in her, but the marill was also harder to find than she had thought, for it had rolled to a stop inside a large clump of couch grass, visible only from the direction it had rolled in from.
 
 Smiling, she grabbed the still unconscious pokemon in her talons and beat her wings to get aloft. There were a pair of oaks standing alone out in the open nearby, the drought and the approaching winter having caused most of their leaves to drop off. Alder landed on one the higher branches of the taller one, keeping a hold on the marill with one foot as she scanned her surroundings. The only pokemon she could readily see were a group of kangaskhan in the distance, and a spearow circling on the sky a good way away. Good. No-one would try to steal her prey or attempt to make a meal of her. For now she was free to fully focus her attention on the marill. Examining the pokemon, she could see that it was a male, and secondly and more importantly, had no visible injuries. There probably would be bruises, but those would stay hidden beneath his fur.
 
 Had this been a normal hunt, she would have used her claws freely, only interested in a meal. That would have saved her the need to search for the marill afterwards, thus avoiding risking having it wake up and get away. She would have used her claws even if she had been planning to take the marill to the town, to be sold to one of the merchants who sold meat to carnivores who either failed to catch anything themselves or had other things to do.
 
 Such merchants were getting less popular these days though, with many of the town's omnivorous and especially of its herbivorous citizens disliking seeing other sentient pokemon sold for food, especially if they were kin, as sometimes happened. Butchers were no longer welcome in the market square, for one thing. Most sold their wares indoors these days, usually on the eastern side of the town, since most of the meat came from the plains, or rather from the large herbivores living there.
 
 But no. This time she needed the marill whole and relatively unhurt. She and her lover had plans for the evening, and she needed something to bring with her. Something still alive and kicking.
 
 The marill was starting to twitch, about to wake up. Getting to work, Alder allowed her smile to widen to a grin, which then opened to reveal the inside of her maw, her black beak with its yellow cere now looking almost comically small as her mouth widened to many times the width it normally looked to be. The water pokemon opened his eyes just in time to look into her own, before his world narrowed to a wet tube as Alder pushed the rodent's face past her beak, uncaring of his squeaks of protest, her gullet starting to stretch around the mouse's spherical body.
 
 Then came the part where she wished that she possessed the ability to swallow like her lover did. Trying to use her wings to keep the pokemon from escaping, she raised her head towards the sky, having gravity provide all the aid it would. The marill didn't slide any deeper. She tried pushing with her wings, but they weren't well suited to the task, providing minimal aid. Thrusting her head forwards wasn't of much use either, and her tongue was able to add only a token force.
 
 "Let me go! Please! I saw the ring on you, I have twenty poke saved up and hidden away. If you let me go, I'll give it to you! You aren't making any progress anyway, and you'll have to breath soon, so please, just let me go!" the rodent in her maw bargained.
 
 She ignored the marill, knowing that she had plenty of time. While the mammals might have the ability to swallow, she had her windpipe open straight at the base of her tongue, so she could sit here and think things through without running out of air. So, for now they were at a stalemate, the marill failing to get out while she failed to get it deeper. Could she fly back to town like this? Possibly, but she wasn't willing to try unless she had to, for several reasons.
 
 Not only was her center of balance far too far forward for her to fly properly, she couldn't even see straight in front of herself. And if she had to use her wings to fly rather than keep the rodent still, he would likely escape. An idea came to her head to simply cut the marill open and eat the choice bits, but no. She didn't want to spoil her appetite for the evening. No. If she didn't get the water mouse in, she would just let him go, no matter how annoying such an event was. And there were those twenty poke the marill had tried to tempt her with...
 
 While she pondered the situation, the marill had managed to get its tail cord hooked below her lower beak, and was now tugging with it to try and get out. And the stupid thing was managing it. For now she was managing to fight back and keep the marill from escaping, but her wings and tongue were tiring out being from being used in a way they weren't meant to.
 
 Then, looking around to make sure that nothing was creeping on her while she was distracted, she got an idea. She didn't dare to jump, afraid the marill's struggling might get her off-balance, but she walked over to the center of the tree and dropped from branch to branch until she stood next to a suitably angled one. Preparing herself, she dropped her wings and pushed her tongue to the bottom of her beak, before ramming her open maw at the thick vertical piece of wood.
 
 The marill let out a squeak as it got hit against the sturdy branch, before getting even noisier as they both felt him slide deeper. Alder thrust against the branch again, then relaxed. She could feel how the rodent's struggles were now only taking him deeper, his round body vanishing from the outside world. Only now did she bother paying any attention to what the marill might have to say, but by this point the mouse had devolved beyond coherent speech, "NO!" being the only word she could recognise. Not that anything he might have to say would change the end result at this point.
 
 She idly watched as the ball on the marill's tail lost its hold on her beak, now pulled along by its owner and starting to approach her gullet. Then she felt the marill's upper body slide into her crop, the extension of her esophagus gladly welcoming its new tenant. The marill slid fully in, and stopped there. His tail ball was still teetering right on the edge of falling in after the rodent, and she tried to push it in with her tongue, then with her wings. Neither succeeded, but the marill turned inside her, pulling his tail after himself on his own.
 
 Feeling the ball slide down to join the rest of the mouse, Alder basked in the feeling of fullness. She couldn't really see herself, but she could feel that both her breast and belly bulged out significantly, something that she would enjoy seeing once she got to a mirror.
 
 "Please let me out! My mate and young are waiting for me to get back!" the words came from within her, the first full sentence that the marill had spoken since she managed to break their stalemate.
 
 "And why would I do that? You are more food than twenty poke could buy" she answered the rodent. There were still few hours before the sun started setting, so she wasn't in any hurry. And truth to be told, she wanted to rest for a moment before taking flight. The marill had managed to tire her out, she had to admit.
 
 "I... I'll give you something else too to sell back in town! Just let me out from here, please! I don't want to get digested!" the marill yelled.
 
 Alder yawned widely, feeling drowsiness slip in. She could just as well roost here for a while. "You aren't in my stomach. You'll be okay where you are for now. Just save your breath... You won't be getting too much fresh air down there. Now I am going to take a quick nap. Wake me up and you will be in my stomach" she promised the marill, letting herself nod off. She was rather deep in the tree, hidden beneath the remaining leaves. She should be safe here for now.
 
 Miraculously, the marill did stay mostly quiet, only occasional movement and quiet sobbing telling that he even was there.
 
-----
 
 Grey-eye had spent the day hunting without much success. The only thing he had caught was a surskit, and even that had meant having to jump in the river. The small water bug wasn't sufficient for what he was planning though, so he had swallowed it to ease his growing hunger. And using one of the seeds on a non-sentient bug would have been ridiculous anyway.
 
 Still, as he walked back to town with nothing to show for his efforts, he regretted eating the bug. Bringing it would have been better than nothing. His lover would again have a chance to point out which of them really was the better predator. With a sigh, the houndoom set for his house close by the river, some way north of where the floatzel community had set itself.
 
 As he walked, he could hear the first toll of the evening bell, signalling that the time for all day visitors to leave had arrived. Indeed, soon a group of two lopunny, a bouffalant and several rattata hurried past him, on their way out of town before the bell rang again. But no other pokemon went by him today. Either it had been a quiet day, or the visitors had left early.
 
 It wasn't until the last crossing before he would turn towards his house that another pokemon came to view. With a surprise he realised that it was a rattata, walking towards him. Even as he stopped to watch it approach, he heard the bell toll again. A sudden hope rose in him, a possible chance to catch a rare straggler, only to get crashed again. The rattata had a small silver ring hanging from its right ear, marking the small pokemon as a citizen.
 
 The rodent had to be a favoured relative or a lover of one of the town's resident raticate. The raticate used the rule that their children were safe until they came of age to full advantage. Since it was impossible for anyone to readily tell the rodent pups apart, no predator dared to hunt any young raticate close to town. The risk of eating a citizen and having to face the punishment was simply too great. Luckily they came of age in just a year, ready to join the food chain.
 
 This particular rattata had managed to escape its fate though, now free to wander the town's streets even in the twilight as sun fell, not having to worry about the predator it was walking right towards of. Clearly the rodent was one of the more intelligent rattata, since someone bothered to pay for its contribution every week. And a rather brave one too, not giving in to its instinct of keeping its distance from potential predators. It just walked along, passing right next to him, tail waving behind it as it walked along slowly, unhurrying...
 
 Grey-eye realised that there still weren't any other pokemon in sight. A crazy idea started growing in his mind. He was about to test the reviver seeds, wasn't he? As far as he had been told, his prey should be fully okay. Right? And there still wasn't anyone else within sight...
 
 Having given himself a permission, the rest happened almost automatically. The rattata was only five feet away, facing away from him. He spun around, pounced, and his front paws landed on the rattata's back. The rodent gave a gasp-like squeak as it got pressed against the gravel, which was all the chance it got to yell for help, for he quickly engulfed its head in his jaws. Turning around quickly, he ran to his house, pushed down the handle and pulled the door open.
 
 Closing the door behind him would be harder, so he didn't bother getting it fully closed, instead quickly running to the next room. At first it might have been mistaken for a merchant's storeroom, specifically a storeroom of a merchant specialising in carpets, rugs, tapestries, blankets and other textiles and fabrics. It also had in it just what he now needed. A large and sturdy steel cage, its door held closed by a simple but heavy hinged bar. The rattata's flailing didn't really help, so it took some trying for him to get the bar lifted, but he managed after a few tries, rising the bar fully vertical where it stood up by itself. Opening the door, he spit the rattata inside, closed the door after it, and pulled at the bar to have it fall back in place.
 
 Ignoring the rattata's terrified squeaks, Grey-eye went to the outer door and pushed through. Stepping outside he closed the door, before spending a while looking around and listening. Nothing indicated that his crime had been noticed, and with the door closed the rattata couldn't really be heard outside his house. His improvised soundproofing was paying off. He had originally set it up to spare himself the embarrassment of having his interests being found out, something which he later realised wasn't as necessary as he had thought. Most of the stuff he had got cheap or even for free, worn out as they had been by years of clawed paws walking on them or scratching at them while dreaming, but the money and effort he had put in the project had felt wasted never the less.
 
 But now it was paying off. This time he was committing a crime, just a kidnapping for now, but if the seeds didn't work... If the seeds failed, it would be a murder. He had eaten rattata before, of course. But they hadn't been citizens.
 
 Thinking about it, he walked around his small house, making sure that no-one seemed to be taking unusual interest to him or his house. There was no-one around. Falling back to his thoughts, he thought of his father. Arrowtail would have argued that it didn't matter if the rattata was a citizen or not. As far as the old houndoom was concerned, the rodents were nothing but vermin, good only for eating. Grey-eye had to admit that his own opinion wasn't much better, but he respected their citizenship just as he respected the citizenship of any other pokemon. So what in the name of Arceus was he doing!
 
 It was simple. He should go and let the rattata go. The rodent would go and tell the town guard what had happened, and a few arcanine would come over and have a sniff around, confirming the story. Since no lasting damage would have been caused, he would get away with a fine and a warning not to do anything like this ever again. But his position in the True Flame would be in danger. And his evening with Alder ruined.
 
 Still, if he went ahead and the rattata died, would he be able to accept what happened? Even if no-one ever found out, he would know what he had done. Stopping to bonder about what he should do, he found himself back at the door. Entering, he walked to the padded room, and looked at the cage. The rattata was trying to lift the bar, something which was simply impossible to such a small pokemon.
 
 "What's your name" he found himself asking from the rodent.
 
 The rattata hadn't noticed him enter the room, busy as it had been with its hopeless attempt to escape. Now it started, jumping away to the rear of the cage and... doing nothing beyond that. One of the reasons that the cage worked especially well with rattata was their inability to learn ranged attacks.
 
 Grey-eye gave the small pokemon a few seconds before repeating his question. It took the rodent a few more seconds for his words to sink in, after which it took a deep breath and said "Mago."
 
 Grey-eye couldn't help the snort that escaped him at hearing that. Either the rattata liked being thought of as food, or they had a really twisted sense of humor. Though now that he thought about it, the way this rattata's tail tip escaped the curl that most rattata tails ended in did make it look sort of like a mago berry. "I am Grey-eye" he introduced himself in exchange.
 
 He didn't really have anything to say beyond that, so he just sat on his haunches, staring at the rattata. At Mago. He realised that his question had come from a part of his mind rebelling against his plans to eat the rodent, trying to make it more of a person, to turn it from food to someone whose fate he would care about. But the more predatory side of him wasn't letting go that easily. He found himself starting to drool as he kept looking at the rodent.
 
 Then he found himself speaking again on an impulse. "I caught you to eat you. What do you have to say about that?" He wondered which side of his mind had thought of that, feeling quite detached from himself as he wondered about what to do.
 
 "What? I don't want to be eaten, naturally! If that was your plan, you should have just bitten hard when you caught me, not kept torturing me like this!" Mago responded, with a ferocity in his red eyes that actually made a twinge of emotion pass by on his mind. Guilt?
 
 Of course the rattata was angry. It had been roughed up and then threatened by a houndoom many times its size and strength, who then kept it locked up and tormented it by telling that it was about to die. The only thing that surprised Grey-eye was that Mago was more angry than he was scared. "Sorry. But I actually needed you alive for what I was planning. You see, I planned to swallow you whole and alive..." he found himself faltering, his eyes turning to look away guiltily. He also noticed that he was already using a past tense of his plans. He would let Mago go, he realised with a sigh. Preying on a citizen just wasn't something he would be able to do.
 
 That is, until he looked back at the rodent, seeing it looking back at his grey eyes with one of the strangest expressions that he had ever seen. There was horror there, yes, and surprise, naturally. But also what seemed like... Excitement? Then his gaze fell down by a few inches, and he realised just what kind of excitement the rattata was feeling. He had noticed that Mago was a male, but until now it hadn't seemed important.
 
 "You... Umm... That is, what do you..." Grey-eye stammered, not quite finding the right words when faced with a prey whose cock was peeking from its sheath in a reaction seemingly brought on by the idea of getting eaten by him.
 
 "You want to swallow me whole and alive." What Mago said wasn't a question. "Why?" Now that was a question.
 
 "It, it is a thing I like and... Umm... I am testing something called reviver seeds too. You see, they..." was as far as the he got.
 
 "You have reviver seeds!" The joyous squeak from Mago stunned Grey-eye even as the rattata jumped forward, standing up and leaning against the cages front, now wanting to get as close to the houndoom as possible. The rattata definitely looked neither scared nor hesitant any-more.
 
 "You know about them?" was the best question Grey-eye could come up with.
 
 "Matriarch Ivory was captured by humans and brought here from Sinnoh region. Back there the seeds were rare, but well known. After her trainer released her here, she laid my mother. Matriarch Ivory likes telling her children and her grand children of all the things that are different here compared to where she came from" Mago explained, barely containing his excitement.
 
 "I see." And he really did. The tradition of oral storytelling had been strong among the houndoom packs too, but he hadn't thought the rattata capable of something like it. Yet what really caught his attention was the news that Coneridge had a human trained pokemon living amongst all the normal pokemon. Did the town's council know about it?
 
 "I take back what I said before. I will let you eat me, as long as you give me a reviver seed" the rattata told the houndoom, distracting the canine's thoughts. The rodent certainly seemed sincere, Mago's erection especially telling that he was eager to go on, as weird as it seemed.
 
 "Before you promise anything, I have to warn you. My team leader, Bluefire, got these seeds from the Guild. She was warned that the seeds weren't as reliable, or possibly not as strong as they are in most other places where the Guild has used them. The seed might fail to work" Grey-eye found himself explaining, now actually trying to convince the rodent not to dive down his gullet.
 
 "Oh." Mago fell quiet for a while. His erection started slipping back in, his excitement brought to a halt for now.
 
 "Yeah. Stand back a little, would you? I'm going to open the cage" Grey-eye promised, moving to raise the locking bar.
 
 The rattata waited without a sound for him to raise the bar and to pull open the door, then jumped out of the cage but stayed in the room. Had Mago wanted to, he could have hid behind all the carpets and tapestries covering the walls, and since few wooden houses in Coneridge were truly solidly built, the rodent likely would have managed to slip out before getting caught.
 
 But to Grey-eye's surprise, Mago simply sat down on one of the rolls of carpet on the floor by the wall opposite of the rooms only door, leaning his front paws to his knees. The posture reminded the houndoom of the way Harek, the town's Guild House's leading official, liked to sit when ever the kadabra visited the True Flames HQ. For some reason it hadn't occurred to Grey-eye before then that rattata actually had what almost counted as proper hands.
 
 Really, now that he stood there looking at Mago, he realised that before now all of his dealings with the rodents had been short and rather one sided. In town he usually ignored them, out of town he ate them. The few he had brought home and put in the cage like he had done with Mago he hadn't really spoken with.
 
 "Mago, there's something I have to ask. You are the first rattata that I've ever really spoken with. Are the others like you? I mean, are they intelligent like you?" Grey-eye found himself asking. He realised even as he said it how bad it sounded, but he had to know.
 
 "You mean, are the rest of us more like me or just vermin?" Mago countered, looking up at him, expression mostly neutral, with just a hint of sadness in it.
 
 Yeah. He really couldn't have put the question in a worse way. Unable to think of anything to say, he just nodded.
 
 "Don't sweat it. The rest are indeed mostly more akin to vermin. You know that rattata come of age in just one year, right?" the rattata asked him, looking away.
 
 "That is said to be the only reason why having resident raticate doesn't swarm the town with rattata" he answered, confirming the rodent's assumption. Unlike most pokemon, who only laid few eggs, usually at spring, raticate lay them year around, several at a time, about once a month. Rattata laid eggs less often, and only a few at a time.
 
 "Well, let me ask you. How intelligent were you at the age of one year?" Mago asked, still looking away.
 
 How intelligent was he at one year of age? The question was something that Grey-eye hadn't ever before thought of. "I was just a kid. Hadn't yet learned much, still mostly going by my instincts. I liked biting the ankles of passing pokemon, I think. Not very smart."
 
 "It isn't much better for the rattata. Our bodies grow up in a year. Our mating instincts kick in at about the same time, which is why we come of age at that age. But despite starting to have offspring of their own, rattata that young aren't smart at all. They mostly survive by their instincts, not by anything that they have learned. Most adult rattata die before ever getting truly intelligent. Most never get beyond just trying to find food, mating when they can, trying to evade predators and generally just surviving" Mago gave the simple solid truth.
 
 "How old are you?" After the rattata's explanation it seemed clear to the houndoom that the rodent had to be older than most. To Grey-eye the rodent seemed as intelligent as most adult houndoom did.
 
 "Eleven years. So I have about four left before I die of old age." Seeing the canine's surprised expression, he continued "Rattata don't often live beyond fifteen years, and not just because most of us get eaten. I mean, you come of age at the age of twelve, right? Well, you have about five times that much time left after that. Similar thing for many other pokemon. If it was the same for rattata though, I would have died about five years ago. So all things considered, I'm really glad that we live even fifteen years."
 
 "But hasn't Greatfang been a citizen of Coneridge for over twenty years?" Grey-eye asked, naming the best know raticate of the city.
 
 "If rattata do manage to evolve, they get to live up to the age of fifty, even more if they evolve early. But most rattata don't ever manage it. Getting the necessary experience, strength of mind and sufficient food isn't easy for us, even if we don't get eaten. And the already evolved raticate do by instinct try to stop any rattata of the same gender from evolving. That's why the families have just a few raticate and lots of rattata in them" Mago explained.
 
 "I see. When you said that you have four years to live, did you mean that you aren't trying to evolve?" the houndoom had to ask. He found himself feeling something for the rattata. Not pity or worry, but something.
 
 But what ever answer Mago might have been about to give was left unsaid, for at that moment they heard a scratching at the outer door, followed by someone opening it. And then with a quiet thump something fell to ground before it could be heard scrambling back up.
 
 "I really wish that someone would come up with a better mechanism for the doors" Grey-eye heard Alder call as she tried to pull the door closed after her.
 
 The houndoom went to help the talonflame with the task. The door handles really were problematic for almost all birds, he had to admit. Not that they were the easiest for quadrupeds either, but at least he could grab the handle with his teeth and pull it closed.
 
 That done, he had a good look at his semi-secret lover. The bird had clearly found prey, for her breast bulged out more than he had seen it do in some time. Nuzzling against her beak with his muzzle, careful not to club her with his horns, he couldn't resist giving the bulge a lick, finding that the feathers above it were stretched apart enough for him to taste the fiery avian's skin, with its delicious spicy flavour. He had always loved how her taste complemented her smoky smell.
 
 "Well, as you can see, I caught something today" Alder told him, pushing his muzzle away with her wing. She liked keeping her distance until the action started. Instead, she jumped a little further inside, to look at herself in the most luxurious item the houndoom owned. A vertical line of small mirror squares, which while only allowing her to view about half of herself at a time, was still more than most pokemon in the town had. Herself very much included.
 
 Following her, Grey-eye watched the talonflame take her own state in. She always had enjoyed seeing herself gorged, whatever the prey was. "You are looking good, as always" he told her, really meaning it.
 
 "It's the crop, isn't it?" she asked, giving him a wink. Then she sobered, asking "What did you get for tonight?"
 
 "My hunting proved fruitless and, well... I kind of panicked. Let me introduce you to Mago" he told the talonflame, turning and walking into the soundproofed room. "Alder, this is Mago. Mago, this is my lover, Alder" he introduced the two once the talonflame followed him in, making a double take at seeing the rodent.
 
 Alder was obviously uncertain what to say or how to react to the situation. She just stared at the rodent sitting unrestrained in Grey-eye's house, in the special room, after having heard them talk about their plans. Yet the rattata wasn't running in terror.
 
 "Your friend kidnapped me, stuck me in that cage and told me he planned to eat me. But he also told me about the reviver seeds, so I'm kind of uncertain about what to do" Mago told the bird bluntly.
 
 "Reviver seeds? What are those?" Alder asked, turning to Grey-eye. Apparently she was handling her confusion by trying to ignore the portion of the events she couldn't readily make sense of.
 
 "They are something the Guild gives to Rescue Team members now. Or rather, the Guild has been giving them for some time in other regions, but we are so far away that bringing them here is difficult. And the Guild hasn't managed to grow them here. I told you some time ago that I had heard about them. They are the things that let the eaten pokemon survive being digested. Remember?" Grey-eye asked from the bird.
 
 "Yeah. I didn't think that something like that would be real. But why would the Guild give the teams something like that?" Alder asked, doubtful. In her opinion the Guild didn't really do much to benefit the town.
 
 "They protect from death by other means too. Their power supposedly preserves the mind of the pokemon at the moment of death and the way the pokemon should be if uninjured. Then the seed tries to return the pokemon to life. If the body is relatively unharmed this will happen quite quickly, but in the case of digestion the old body is basically gone. In such a case the seed will have to build a new body, which both takes time and is less likely to succeed. So having such seeds with rescuers does make all kinds of sense" Grey-eye explained from what he could remember about Bluefire's speech. He really hadn't been interested in the details, already busy thinking about the practical applications. Or more precisely, the entertainment applications.
 
 "If that is how the seeds work, shouldn't they work better for small pokemon? It should be less effort making a small body, after all" Mago asked, causing Alder to turn towards him in a flash. At that the rattata did fall backwards behind the carpet roll, hiding from the bird.
 
 "Sorry, I forgot for a moment that you were there" she apologised, though her harsh tone made the apology seem less than honest.
 
 "That's okay" the rattata replied, without coming back in their sight.
 
 "Just a second the two of you" Grey-eye interrupted them. He had just had an idea. Walking out of the room, he walked through his combined lounge/kitchen to which the outer door opened to, and to the door of the third and last room of his small house. Opening it, he went in to his storage room. It was really more of a walk in closet, but he preferred to call it a storage room. Made it seem larger, for one thing.
 
 He had stashed the small bag he carried his money and other valuables in to the shelf there. Picking it up with his teeth, he returned to Alder and Mago. "Hey Mago, catch!" he called, swinging his head and letting go of the bag, which flew to bounce on top of the carpet roll before falling behind accompanied by a startled squeak.
 
 "Hey! This thing is heavy for someone of my size! Be a little more careful, okay?" the rattata called from between the carpet and the wall.
 
 "Sorry. But I thought that you might be more comfortable if you had the seed with you already. There's two in the pouch, feel free to pick which one you like more" Grey-eye told the rodent.
 
 "What? I mean, sure. But I haven't yet decided if I want to go ahead with this or not" Mago reminded the houndoom, while the jingling of coins told that he was working on the bag.
 
 "I've made the decision for you, my dear meal. Your idea seems a valid one. The seeds indeed should work better for small pokemon. Therefore the matter is decided, and you shall feed me tonight" Grey-eye told the rattata gently but firmly, walking closer to the rodent's hiding place.
 
 His suspicion seemed to hold true. From behind the carpet roll a strangled sounding squeak could be heard. But no sounds of scampering away came forth. No terrified squeaks followed. And when Grey-eye looked over the carpet roll to look at the rattata, he saw Mago looking back at him with wide, yet eager eyes, holding a reviver seed between his small front paws. The rodent wanted this as much as he did. Sure, Mago wasn't willing to die for the experience, but the rattata would tolerate some risk. And the rodent wanted to be the prey, to be denied the chance to make a choice.
 
 For Mago it was precisely the opposite as it was for him. Grey-eye and Alder were predators. Just like she he liked being the dominant one, to choose their prey's fate, to enjoy their doomed struggling. Mago on the other hand seemed to be a born prey. He wanted to be the one things were done to, the one who had no choice in his fate, who struggled without hope of escape.
 
 That pokemon with such attitude existed hadn't occurred to Grey-eye before. True, it wasn't all that Mago was. The rattata wanted to live, wanted to stay safe. He wanted to be more than just food. But yet the small pokemon wanted to be food. To experience it. It still seemed strange to Grey-eye that a member of a heavily preyed on species could find enjoyment in being prey, but he was okay with it.
 
 But looking at Mago, he had no doubt that his sudden insight was indeed true. Opening his jaws wide, the houndoom plunged his head down, before gently scooping up both the rattata and the bag with its remaining seed. He brought both back to the center of the room, in front of the talonflame, and lowered them to the floor.
 
 "So Alder, who's your passenger?" he asked the bird.
 
 "Passenger?" Mago asked, wiping saliva from his face. He turned to look at the talonflame, only now seeming to realise that there was something unusual about her proportions. "You've just eaten someone?" he asked, whiskers twitching as he observed the bulging breast in front of him.
 
 "Several hours ago, actually. I took a nap afterwards and slept longer than I intended to" Alder confirmed, looking up to the houndoom when she told why she was being late.
 
 "Not very alive any more then" the rattata commented, taking a step back.
 
 "You might be surprised" Grey-eye told him, stepping over the rodent and lowering his head right beside the birds chest. "Hello there. Can you hear me?"
 
 A moment later, they all heard muted chattering from inside the bird, though only Alder could hear it clearly enough to understand what was being said.
 
 "Its a marill. A male one. He must've fallen asleep while I was sleeping. Okay, quiet down in there. It seems that you are in luck today. You might live after all" she told them, the last half spoken to her breast. "He's in my crop, you see. It wouldn't have done for him to die too early."
 
 "We have this thing, you see. About once every two weeks, we have a dinner date. We both bring live prey, and eat them at our leisure, whole, still alive" Grey-eye explained to the rattata, sitting down on his haunches to watch the movement in the bird's breast.
 
 Mago seemed to be about to ask about the reason for such behaviour, when he turned to look back at the houndoom and his eyes fell between the canines legs. To the swelling sheath and the sharp red tip poking into view from within.
 
 "You see, you might enjoy getting eaten, but that doesn't mean that we can't enjoy doing the eating" the canine told the rodent.
 
 For his part, Mago said nothing, just held the seed tight against his belly while his eyes turned from the canine to the bird and back again.
 
 "By the way, how tough are those seeds? My gizzard can grind bones, I would assume normal seeds would get crushed immediately" Alder suddenly spoke up.
 
 "Well, they should be pretty tough. Not all the time though, just after they activate and start the revival process. The Guild hadn't heard of a case where the seed would have been broken during the revival. The rest of the time they digest or break just like normal seeds" Grey-eye told her.
 
 "Okay. Hey, marill!" Alder said, speaking to her chest again. "You better give me a good rubbing down there, or I'll eat you again!" she threatened the poor rodent, before with a wet squelch the bulge in her breast slid down to stop in her belly. The marill did as she wanted it to, whether due to obeying her or due to simple panic. The talonflame didn't care which one it was, as long as she could enjoy it.
 
 The sight elicited a needy whimper from Grey-eye, his erection pushing further from its sheath. But he managed to keep his mind on his task. "Mago, feed her the other seed."
 
 "Me?" the rattata asked, staring at the bird wide eyed. Apparently the rodent didn't like the idea of possibly getting eaten by the talonflame. Strange, considering that he had no such hesitation about getting eaten by a houndoom.
 
 "The marill needs the seed now, and you are the only one present with paws nimble enough to readily give it to her" Grey-eye told the rodent. Not that it was true, actually. He could empty the bag on the floor and she could pick the seed up with her beak gently enough to avoid damaging it. No, what he wanted was to see the rattata's reaction to feeding the seed to Alder.
 
 Hesitantly Mago set his seed down, opening the bag again and sticking his front half inside for a moment to feel around for the other reviver seed. When he emerged with it, Grey-eye could see the reasoning by which the rattata had chosen his seed. This other one was slightly smaller, but otherwise looked fully fine. The marill should be fine with it, as long as whatever made the seeds less effective in these parts didn't get in the way.
 
 With the seed in his paws, Mago looked up at Grey-eye, and seeing the houndoom nod towards the talonflame the rattata slowly walked near the bird. With a teasing slowness, Alder opened her beak wide, showing Mago the complex arrangement of ridges and grooves in the flesh of her palate and the relatively thin tongue resting at the bottom of her beak. With each of her breaths the opening of the trachea at the base of her tongue could be seen flaring wider as she breathed out, then pulling back as she breathed in. Her gullet was closed, the fold of soft tissue at the back of her maw pure, smooth pink, wet with her saliva.
 
 Mago just stood there for a while, seemingly hypnotised by the sight in front of him. Alder looked at the rattata in amusement, her eyes spending a long time looking between the rodents legs. But though he too was amused, Grey-eye was more fearful that the marill might not last for long. Thus he gave the rattata a small push with his paw. The spell broken, Mago placed the seed in his paws to the tip of Alder's tongue, then backed away in a hurry. With a chuckle she closed her beak and lifted her head straight up, then turned back on them and opened her mouth to show them that the seed had fallen down her gullet. "I'll feel when it hits my crop, and I'll pass it to my stomach straight away" she told Grey-eye.
 
 "Thanks. So, that just leaves us, Mago. You have ten seconds to get yourself ready" the houndoom warned the rattata.
 
 Immediately the rodent jumped back to where he had left his reviver seed, picking it up and clutching it against his chest like the protective talisman it was.
 
 "Good. I normally just start with the head, prey being easier to swallow that way, but with you, I'll give you the option. Head first or feet first?" Grey-eye asked from Mago, smiling widely at the ready eagerness he could see on the rattata's face. He was warming up to the idea of a willing meal, and he was going to make sure that they were both going to enjoy it.
 
 "Feet first, please?" Mago squeaked at him, barely able to stand up.
 
 Slowly Grey-eye lowered himself to his belly, bringing his eyes to level with the rattata. For a moment his grey eyes stared at the rodent's red. Then he opened his jaws, the orange fur surrounding them contrasting with the black fur of the rest of his head and neck, framing the deep pink flesh and gleaming white teeth.
 
 He let Mago look at the sight for a few moments, lowered his head to the carpeted floor, and beckoned the rodent in with his tongue.
 
 He lost track of Mago for a moment when the rattata managed to take a few wobbly steps forward, hidden from sight by his own muzzle, but soon felt a small paw grab a hold on the left canine of his upper jaw, Mago's head coming back to view as the rodent stood up on his hind feet. The seed in the rattata's other front paw pressed against the lip just below his nose, giving another point for Mago to lean on.
 
 Grey-eye took a deep breath through his nose, holding it in for a moment, then exhaled through his mouth on the rodent's rear half. He felt the rattata shiver, the vibrations transmitted by his teeth, those red eyes narrowing in pleasure.
 
 He responded by giving Mago a slow, slobbery lick across the rodent's groin and belly, tasting the usual taste of a rattata, but mixed in was something... heavier. Like the earthy taste of the herbs his mother liked to use with red meat. He could only assume that this was what the fluids coating the rattata's exposed member tasted like, it being something that no other rattata had ever given him to taste, and neither had he been interested in trying to force it out of them.
 
 But Mago seemed quite turned on by the experience, his eyes closing and breathing turning to shallow panting, lost in the sensation. If the seed failed to work, at least the rodent would have had the time of his life before leaving this world.
 
 If only he could take his time, Grey-eye thought. But Alder would soon start to feel left out, and even though he didn't want to disappoint the rattata, his lover came first. Gently he slid his tongue between the rodent's legs, pushing up. His tongue alone wasn't strong enough to lift Mago, but the rattata aided by letting go of the seed, which fell to his tongue, and grabbing on to his teeth with both front paws before pulling himself upwards.
 
 Now held up, Grey-eye manoeuvred the rattata's legs deep inside his jaws. He felt Mago grab the seed between his feet, unwilling to have it drop down the houndoom's gullet before the rodent was ready to follow.
 
 Gently he closed his maw enough to hold the rattata in place, rising his head from the floor. Lifting his maw upwards, he slightly parted his jaws, allowing Mago to slide deeper. The rattata's tail was now tickling his gullet, not yet deep enough for the muscles to get a grip on it, but close enough for his throat to reflexively try to suck the rodent in. Mago's head, shoulders and front paws still hung outside his muzzle, the tiny paws holding on to his nose. But even if the rattata now had second thoughts, he was too far gone to escape. Mago was now food.
 
 And the rattata seemed to agree, for Grey-eye felt something peculiar. A soft but firm rod rubbing against his palate, grinding against it in rhythm with the rodent's quiet squeaks and movements. The rattata's hind feet were pushing against the inner corners of his jaws, giving enough of a footing for Mago to rub his dick against the houndoom's upper jaw.
 
 At first Grey-eye felt somehow insulted, before relenting. After all, if Mago was busy having fun, he and Alder could get on with their plans too. He looked at the talonflame, catching her eye. It seemed that she agreed. The rattata's show, while not visible outside the houndoom's jaws, was still audible. And the expression on the rodent's face told tales all on it's own. It was something new for Alder as well, but she seemed turned on by the sight. Without a word, she walked over on a thicker pile of carpets, those that Grey-eye had judged the softest, and fell on her back on top of them. Presenting her neck, belly and most meaningfully, her cloaca to the houndoom.
 
 Taking the cue, Grey-eye followed her. Normally he would have told her how delicious she looked, keeping up a role of a predator that had caught himself a delicious meal with a dessert still wiggling inside of her, before they engaged fully. But today his mouth was busy with something else, and he had something different in mind to spice things up.
 
-----
 
 Alder watched him approach, his bright red erection waving proudly beneath his belly as he moved. She prepared to be pierced, still quite dry but too excited to care that the usual foreplay wouldn't be there. But just before he stepped above her, spreading his feet around her as was normal, his head fell down. And Alder felt a small tongue start working on her cloaca. She started. She hadn't agreed to have herself eaten out by a prey! But even as she started to scramble up, she felt Grey-eye's front feet fall on her legs, holding them down. And a low growl issued from deep down his throat, reminding her that she was the prey here.
 
 Both Alder and Mago stopped at hearing the growl, but Grey-eye moved his head, prodding the rattata further, the rodent's snout momentarily slipping inside the warm hole before sliding back out. Getting the hint, Mago resumed his work, his tongue slipping out between his parted jaws to lick everything he could reach, wetting the birds nethers with his saliva.
 
 Alder on the other hand accepted the rodent's efforts, having been reminded of her place. Yes, she was a prey here too, even if her own prey still moved inside of her. Grey-eye was her master, her lover, her predator. So far their play hadn't ever progressed further than words, his growl already more than he usually went for, but now she found herself growing excited. If the seeds worked, could their play become reality? Could he really eat her? Could she really slide down the tube inside that black neck, to become just a large bulge inside that orange furred belly?
 
 It was more these thoughts and the marill massaging her from the inside than the rattata which made her moan, her need growing with every passing second. "I'm ready! Have me!" she screeched for the houndoom.
 
 At first, it seemed that she had been ignored. But then, at a pace of his own choosing, Grey-eye lifted the rodent up from her tail feathers, then lifted his paws from her feet, allowing her talons the freedom of movement again. After what felt like an eternity, the houndoom's legs landed on either side of her body, pressing against her wings and stopping her from spreading them even if she wanted to. He had her where he wanted her.
 
 For a moment the houndoom's head fell down, the rattata's head slipping inside her open beak. She felt the rodent give her tongue a kiss, then shudder violently in Grey-eye's jaws. But the drawn out squeak that Alder heard the prey give wasn't one of fear or pain, for she had heard both of those before. No, this squeak she had only ever heard once when she had surprised a pair of the rodents in an act of mating.
 
 Yet soon the sound faded away, the houndoom lifting his head again, his lower jaw and the rattata's upper body silhouetted against the roof. But this time the maw kept rising, soon standing almost straight up.
 
 And then she heard him swallow. Alder had seen the houndoom eat before. They had done these meetings of theirs for almost a year now, every other week or so. But never had she been below him when he ate. Their prey weren't co-operative enough to risk it. But now she saw how the orange fur at the rear of his jaws stretch out, the bulge slowly extending towards his neck. Another swallow sounded, sending shudders through her. The talonflame stared at the bulge, seeing it reach the point where orange gave way to black, continuing unheeding of such superficial matters. A third swallow speeded the rattata on his way down, the bulge now moving steadily down that proud neck with its charcoal black fur, only occasional twitch or unsymmetrical protrusion showing that the meal was still living.
 
 Suddenly she felt something prod at her belly. With the more concentration requiring part out of the way, the houndoom was moving on. His first tentative thrust overshot, passing above the mark. But he had been getting good at this, and the very second thrust touched her cloaca, though still aimed slightly too high. The third hit dead on, pressing in, angled just right to find the right tube within. He had had trouble with getting his dick inside the right way back when they had first got together, but by now the houndoom was well acquainted with her avian anatomy.
 
 The talonflame's feet rose to press up on the canine's chest as he started to press in and pull out at a steady pace, slowly picking up speed as she relaxed around his length. For her this was pure bliss. Her prey still rubbed her from within, Grey-eye's meal she could now feel squirming against her talons, and the houndoom's own intrusion within her was heating up as he gathered momentum. Had Alder not been a fire type herself the heat might have become painful, but she merely enjoyed the warmth spreading from her rear, reaching to meet the heat of her own burning core.
 
 Grey-eye too must have been enjoying his meal, more so than normal. The rattata seemed to be rubbing himself against the inside of the houndoom's stomach, not bouncing around in panic or trying to attack his prison futilely like most prey did. She had to admit that she was jealous. Her prey was of the panic driven type, like they usually were. Though with the tight accommodations the marill had, it didn't manage to actually bounce around. Rather the rodent just wiggled around, pushing this way and that, probably hoping that she would get nauseous. That might have worked back when she was young, but for years no prey had managed to do anything but bring her pleasure.
 
 The smaller rattata inside the slightly larger stomach of the houndoom would have had more give had it wanted to struggle, but seemed to have no interest in that. Clearly the rodent trusted the seed, something she too hoped would work, if for no other reason than to let her use one herself. No, the rattata seemed intent on having as much fun as he could, and it looked like it was either by intent or coincidence pleasuring Grey-eye at the same time. Yes, she was jealous. Perhaps she should break her role enough to remind the houndoom that... Then she forgot all about it as Grey-eye changed the rhythm and thrust deeper.
 
-----
 
 Mago was incredible. That was the thought near the top of Grey-eye's mind, beaten only by the sensations from his belly. He had had dozens, no, hundred's of enjoyable meals during his life, many of them live and wriggling.
 
 But none had been like this. Mago seemed to know just what to do, just where to rub, just what pace to keep. If he hadn't known that it would have been a certain death for the rattata to have practised such skills, he would have claimed that the rodent had done just that. The fact that it felt like the rattata was doing most of the rubbing with his erection only added to his excitement.
 
 Suddenly he realised that he had almost forgotten about Alder. He was thrusting in her purely by reflex, not paying attention to the act at all. For a moment his role almost slipped, with him almost apologising to her. But no, she wanted him in charge. She didn't want to know if he was distracted. She wanted him to pretend that he only cared to use her. The time for words would be afterwards, or at another day entirely. Today they had set up in advance.
 
 Digging his claws in the carpet he stood on, he pulled out of Alder, only to thrust back, deep and with force. The surprised chirp that left the talonflame was quite un-raptor-like, much better suited for a small bird such as pidgey. Getting in a steady rhythm, he soon found the balance between anticipation of the next thrust and the mind numbing sensation of having her passage stretch around his length. From what he could hear between the moments of blood roaring in his head, Alder had no complaints either.
 
 Yet the end was approaching, Grey-eye realised, feeling the knot beginning to grow at the base of his member. He gave the last few thrusts, the last barely squeezing in, and shuddered as felt the knot stick, filling the space inside the talonflame's cloaca. Not a second later he came with a howl. The hot seed might have felt even painful to some pokemon, but Alder was a fire type as well. She merely moaned in pleasure as her insides were further heated up, her muscles convulsing around his male-hood as she too reached orgasm.
 
 Slowly, the houndoom allowed himself to lay down on top of her, her legs spreading under the weight of his belly. For some time they merely lay there, Grey-eye giving Alder a few gentle licks along her chest and beak, she reaching to preen his fur in exchange. But the peace was broken, for suddenly Grey-eye came aware of a faint sound.
 
 "Can you hear me?" the quiet squeaking came from within him.
 
 "I can hear you, Mago" the houndoom answered, adding the name to clear the confusion he saw growing in Alders eyes.
 
 "Its getting pretty hot in here. And I think I can feel my skin starting to... I don't know what exactly it feels like, but I think it means there's acid in here now" the rattata called from inside the canine's stomach.
 
 "Right. The digestion must be starting. Do you want out?" Grey-eye called back, despite the disapproving look that Alder gave him.
 
 "Well... No. I trust the reviver seed. But there is still air here. I would rather not feel what likely comes next" Mago replied, his voice even fainter.
 
 "Okay. I'll be seeing you then" Grey-eye said, though he suddenly found the words hard to speak. Again he realised that if the seed failed to work, the result would weigh on him for the rest of his life. But Mago had made the choice. He had to keep that in mind, no matter what happened.
 
 Concentrating, he contracted the muscles on his chest and sides, putting pressure on his stomach. It didn't take long before he felt the its upper valve give, releasing the excess gasses from inside to flow up his gullet. Turning his head away from the talonflame just in time, the houndoom gave a mighty belch, something an arcanine would have been proud of.
 
 "Thank you. Just promise..." he heard, before a loud gurgling hid the rest of the words. And then it was quiet, the heat and sudden lack of oxygen soon putting the rattata to sleep.
 
 "Is he done now?" Alder bluntly asked. As usual, the talonflame had no feelings for their prey. "The marill gave up some time ago. I was wondering if the other squeaker ever would."
 
 "Mago is a citizen, Alder. If he had asked to, I would have let him out at any point" the houndoom reminded his lover. Had the situation been different he would have underlined his words by turning his back on her, but tied as they were that was, while not impossible, something he didn't want to attempt.
 
 "A citizen. Has it occurred to you what you will do if the seeds do nothing? You don't actually have any evidence that the rattata walked into your jaws willingly, do you?" the talonflame asked, having realised a big flaw in the plans Grey-eye had.
 
 For a while they were again quiet, Alder relaxing now that the houndoom was quiet, enjoying the afterglow. For her lover though, there was no enjoyment. The talonflame was right, Grey-eye realised. He had no evidence to back up his claims that Mago had volunteered. Especially since the signs would likely tell that the rattata had at first been put in a cage.
 
 If Mago's disappearance would be investigated, the only conclusion the town guard could come to was that he had eaten another citizen, committing murder. At best he could expect to be exiled, considering his years of citizenship and his membership in a Rescue Team as points in his favour. Without those he would certainly be killed.
 
 But those would only be the case if the reviver seeds failed. What had started as a way to spice up the evening Alder and he had planned had turned to something much more serious. Now the seeds not only guarded their user's futures, but his own as well.
 
 But while Grey-eye worried, Alder kept enjoying herself. If this ended up badly, the talonflame thought, she would just fly away. Hopefully she could convince her houndoom to come with her, but if things came to it, she could live without him. She would miss him though, so it was best to enjoy him as long as she could.
 
-----
 
 It had taken quite a while for his knot to deflate, a time during which Alder had fallen asleep. The talonflame showed no reaction when Grey-eye pulled out, lulled to a deep sleep by sex and her large meal. Quietly the houndoom cleaned himself up somewhat, before slipping out of his house and starting to wander aimlessly in the post sun fall darkness.
 
 Had the evening been a normal one, he would have been happily sleeping beside or on top of Alder. But unlike the bird, he hadn't found sleep. Worrying about his own future was certainly a part of it. The thought about one day leaving the town had occurred to him before, and he had never entirely dismissed the possibility. But having to do so when forced to, with little to no warning... No, that most definitely wasn't something he wanted to have to do.
 
 And yet, as he had laid there, waiting to get free from his lover, he had found his thoughts turning more and more not to what the possible failure of the reviver seed would mean to him, but what it would mean to Mago. The rattata would be and would stay very dead.
 
 Stopping for a while by the roadside below some trees, Grey-eye sat and examined his belly with his front paws. The rattata was still mostly in one piece, though his shape wasn't as firm as it had been half an hour earlier. An hour or two more and the flesh would start to separate from the bones, which in turn would take most of the night to soften up.
 
 And in the end, all there would be left would be a small silver ring. Just that. Nothing else to remind him of the person who had lived for eleven years, gained intelligence beyond the norm of the rattata, and possibly even been on the way of becoming his friend. No, getting exiled wouldn't be the worst consequence that might result from this. Even being put to death wouldn't be. The worst possibility would be having to live with what he had done.
 
 And that brought his thoughts to an even larger issue. He had eaten hundreds of pokemon, or pieces of them at the very least. How many of those would he have felt similarly about had they had a chance to talk to him? The thought was a paralysing one, for what he had grown up to consider normal might no longer be something he could live with. Would he be able to hunt again? Where would he draw a line in choosing his prey?
 
 Thinking about it, he got back up and continued walking. The few passers-by didn't pay him much attention, the bulge in his stomach not sufficiently large to attract any stares. And with the time of safe passage over a long time ago, the town guard had stopped checking whether any predators might have been tempted by the visiting prey. He was mostly alone, free to focus on his thoughts.
 
 The fish and many of the bugs would still be on his menu, he decided, no doubt about that. But they didn't make that large a portion of what he ate, especially not of what he himself could catch, swimming being something he could do but heavily disliked. Perhaps he should just give up hunting, living on berries and fruit in addition to what fish he could buy? But if he chose to try that, his father would be furious. The old canine already thought that having Grey-eye being part of a rescue team that sometimes helped prey pokemon was a bad thing.
 
 What he really needed was to talk about this with someone. But who? The thought made him look around himself, to see if someone suitable might just happen to be around. But to his surprise, he found himself on the south eastern edge of the town, the least built up part inside the town's borders, at least on this side of the river. With the possibility of wilderners attacking lone weak looking citizens very real this close to the border, only guards and some braver inhabitants moved outside this late in this area.
 
 Yet Grey-eye wasn't really worried. Houndoom weren't on the menu for most of this areas predators, and despite his hunting skills being somewhat lacking, he could fight reasonably well. Indeed, the peace and quiet might be just what he needed right now. Sitting by the roadside, facing the forest just to be safe, he stopped to think about what to do with himself.
 
 He was still sitting there an hour later, when he became aware of a noise from the forest. Something was approaching him. But the sound wasn't one of a stalking predator, or of any pokemon walking with a steady determined pace. Rather, it sounded more like someone dragging a weight after themself.
 
 Deciding against moving closer to the forests edge, just in case the sounds were a trap for him, he kept sitting and waited for something to come in sight. When something finally did, he found himself up on his feet straight away.
 
 The zangoose that limped in sight was just about the most severely injured still living pokemon that Grey-eye had ever seen. Most worryingly, all the other pokemon he had seen in a similar condition had soon died. Automatically he started to hurry at the wounded pokemon's aid, before realising that he didn't even know if the zangoose was a citizen or a wilderner. There certainly wasn't a ring in sight, but then again, the most logical place for one would have been one of the ears, both of which had been shredded.
 
 Really, it was a miracle that the zangoose was conscious, let alone moving on its own. It was covered in cuts and bite marks, with the few shreds of bandages covering the pokemon likely hiding even worse wounds. Its blood matted fur was a mess, with every type of debris stuck to it, making it impossible to even tell whether the pokemon was a male or a female. A leather strap vent over one shoulder, a ragged looking bag of some kind hanging on the ferrets side.
 
 It limped slowly forward, bracing against one leg, before stepping forward with the other and dragging the first one behind itself. The reason for its difficulty of movement was easy to see. The dragging leg was bound with sticks and drags, immobilising and supporting the leg to allow some kind of movement despite having bone showing where something had clawed away the skin covering the knee.
 
 Deciding that the zangoose needed aid, wilderner or not, Grey-eye moved closer, though still warily. His caution proved wise, for the zangoose suddenly raised its head, arms flashing forward with three claws extended. The fourth, Grey-eye noted even as he jumped back, hang loosely and uselessly.
 
 "Okay zangoose, calm down. You are in the town of Coneridge now" he told the ferret pokemon, trying to get through the haze obviously filling its mind.
 
 Whether the zangoose heard or not, it showed no reaction. It merely kept moving towards him, a weak growl rising from between its parted jaws.
 
 "Look, I'm trying to help you. Please, calm down" he tried again.
 
 Yet the zangoose kept coming, far too slowly to have any hope of catching him, but clearly intent on fighting the houndoom it faced.
 
 Wondering whether he should try to alert the town guard, Grey-eye suddenly had an idea. Slowly he started towards north, the zangoose following close behind.
 
-----
 
 It had already been dark for a while, and rather than waste candles Firefoot decided that it was a time to try to get some sleep. Sure, being a houndoom and naturally nocturnal she could have gone outside, her ability to see in the dark sufficient to let her see in the starlight, or perhaps she could have gone to a tavern or to one of the other places where pokemon gathered once the sun fell. Yet she didn't feel like doing so right now.
 
 Blazefur was still missing, even after a full day had passed. She had given Harek a hard time trying to get him to tell where exactly her team leader was, but the kadabra refused to speak. The only thing he told was that Blazefur was safe, even though the arcanine's location was a secret.
 
 Since actually injuring a Guild official would have resulted in far more trouble than she wanted right now, there was little she could do but to accept Harek's word. But she didn't like it. Not one bit. What time she hadn't spent pestering Harek or snooping around town to try to pick up the arcanine's scent she had spent sending the team to its usual missions. After all, she was the second in command of the Blazers, even if this was the first time when the title was anything more than a formality.
 
 But the day was ending now, and as a second in command she decided to stay in their HQ, ready to act if any word of Blazefur's location arrived. Yet she had barely started up the stairs to the second floor where her room was located, when a sharp knock sounded from the main doors, followed by two more after a moments pause.
 
 Turning back around, Firefoot came to the doors just in time to see another houndoom knock the door with his horns, a male houndoom judging by the size of the horns.
 
 "The door's open. Just push" she told the other dark canine, sitting to wait for the visitor.
 
 The male obeyed, pushing through the double doors and immediately starting to talk. "I need help! There's a wounded zangoose here that's not in its right mind. It keeps trying to attack me despite being a stubbed toe away from death! Does anyone on your team know a way to restrain a pokemon without hurting it?" the houndoom, Grey-eye if she recognised him correctly, told in a hurry.
 
 "A zangoose? Does he have double markings?" Firefoot got on her feet, already moving past the other houndoom to look outside.
 
 "I don't know. The pokemon's so covered in blood and dirt that I can't even tell if its a male or a female" the other houndoom told her. Yes, definitely Grey-eye, she decided when getting a sniff of his scent while moving past.
 
 "Okay. Which way?" Firefoot asked instead.
 
 "The zangoose was right behind me at the crossing. I took a burst of speed to have enough time to alert you before it reached your HQ" Grey-eye answered, following her outside. But the zangoose was indeed nowhere to be seen. Starting towards the south to see where it had gone, he suddenly heard speech coming from behind the corner of the storage building next to the Blazers HQ.
 
 "By Arceus! What happened to you? Do you need any help?" someone unseen asked, likely from the zangoose.
 
 "Look out! The zangoose is dangerous!" he called ahead, running with Firefoot following close behind.
 
 Rounding the corner, they were just in time to see a male typhlosion on two feet step back from a clumsy cross slash with which the zangoose tried to cut the fire type. Now alerted to the danger, the typhlosion backed away, his mane igniting in readiness, though for now he just kept a close eye on the ferret.
 
 "Ary! Come to your senses! What is wrong with you?" Firefoot called at the zangoose, recognising the pokemon despite his condition.
 
 But Ary gave no answer, aside from turning towards the two houndoom and starting to slowly limp towards them.
 
 "Typhlosion! Just leave him to us. We'll figure out some way to help him" the female houndoom told the bipedal fire type, while starting to slowly back away. Grey-eye likewise backed behind the corner, only keeping his head in view to watch the zangoose's movements.
 
 "Okay. Thanks!" the typhlosion replied, his flames quenching as he turned to hurry the opposite way, picking up a sack of flour he had apparently been carrying before noticing the zangoose.
 
 Slowly the two houndoom lead the zangoose towards the Blazers HQ, Firefoot running inside to wake up Blissy shortly before they reached the building.
 
 "What is it?" the chansey asked her through the door after Firefoot had kept hammering the portal to the pink pokemon's room for a while.
 
 "You have a patient. But you'll need to calm him down first, so get your voice ready and get downstairs" she called in, turning to hurry back down herself.
 
 Grey-eye was already inside, dodging the zangoose around the furniture of the their relaxation area. While the male houndoom's way of keeping the zangoose busy and contained seemed to be working well, Firefoot couldn't help but wince at the bloodstains the ferret kept leaving on the carpet, not to mention the furniture he threw out of his way to smash against the walls.
 
 But soon she heard a soft voice start in a song, singing about the beauty of flowering meadows, the crisp air and majesty of snow capped mountains and the gentle voice of fresh streams in the forest. Targeted at the zangoose, neither of the houndoom felt the sleep creeping on them, to them the song was just an inspiring tale about the glory of nature.
 
 But the zangoose started stumbling, still trying to follow Grey-eye, but slower, slower... Until he collapsed on a low padded seat, sliding down from it to slump on the floor, snoring gently.
 
 "Good job Blissy!" Firefoot called up to the stairs, where the chansey was visible over the railing, worriedly looking down on them. "Wake up Huntress if you would. We'll need help to get Ary to the infirmary."
 
-----
 
 Using her healing pulse to stabilise the zangoose, Blissy then spent much of the night inspecting and treating his wounds as best as she could. Surprisingly to her, the smaller injuries seemed to heal before she could even do anything about them. The rapid healing went a long way to explain why the zangoose was still alive, but told nothing about why he had kept attacking everyone, or how he had managed to keep moving to begin with. Usually pokemon with injuries this severe collapsed unconscious, preserving their energy for healing.
 
 Firefoot left the patient for Blissy, concentrating instead on the satchel the zangoose had been carrying. It had on it some scorch marks, tears from what had obviously been teeth, and a long slash that might have come from a claw like the zangoose's own. Inside there were only some bloody bandage scraps, few leaves, some crushed berries and strangely enough, two large seeds, both cracked open on one side.
 
 What really interested Firefoot were the smells that had caught on the thing. Ary's was obviously strongest, but there were also traces from a dozen or so other pokemon, though only one strong enough to stand out. A houndoom, one whose smell was familiar to her. Her own brother, Hooktail, having been missing for almost two weeks.
 
 Considering that, Ary had obviously fought Hooktail on his way back from the True Ones cave. Why the zangoose hadn't just used his badge to teleport back was something she didn't understand, but like Suhaw, the pidgeotto who acted as their team's scout had seen, the zangoose had chosen to make his way out on foot. Well, on wings on the birds case.
 
 Last evening the team had spoken much about the possible reason for such a decision. The most favoured explanation had been that the zangoose had another task to accomplish somewhere nearby to where they had separated, one which Ary was willing to risk much to complete. Another theory, put forth by their team's only water type, the floatzel Quicktail, had been that Ary hadn't had his badge with him.
 
 That had been dismissed as ridiculous, for the zangoose could simply have asked to be taken along by a member of the Blazers. Yet the ferret's bag had no badge in it. Considering what other scrap was still inside it was unlikely that the badge would have simply fallen out, meaning that Quicktail might have hit the mark.
 
 Ary would definitely have some explaining to do once he woke up. But for now, there was someone else she had to speak to.
 
 "Grey-eye" she called ahead, walking into the relaxation area where the male houndoom was laying on one of the couches.
 
 "Firefoot. Thank you for the help. I have to admit that my team doesn't have anyone who could have handled the situation as well as your chansey did, nor would there be anyone who could have given the zangoose proper care" the other houndoom admitted, seeming ashamed either of his team's lack of diversity or of himself having to speak badly of his own team.
 
 "That's okay. We are glad to have done so. Ary is someone who we recently went on a mission with, so helping him is something we happily do. But now that there's some time, would you mind telling me where you found him?" she replied, sitting on a large flat pillow opposite of the couch.
 
 "Near the edge of the village, almost straight to south from here. I was on a late evening walk, having decided that I needed some time to think about... things" the male told her, while interestingly enough rubbing his belly at the same time. A belly large enough to tell that the black and orange canine had eaten well not too long ago. "Anyway, I stopped to think in a quiet spot, and after a while realised that there were sounds coming closer from within the forest. That's when the zangoose, Ary, came in my sight. I saw that he was wounded, and moved to help him. But he tried to cut me as soon as I got close. Talking to him did nothing, he just kept following me. So I thought about what to do, and then decided to come here" Grey-eye finished the quick version of his tale.
 
 "Did he come from south?" she asked, wondering what route the zangoose had taken.
 
 "More from south-east than south. Had he kept the same heading, he would have ended up near the First Bridge" the male told her, mentioning the older of the two bridges that passed over the river flowing through Coneridge.
 
 "Right" Firefoot mumbled. The heading might have meant that Ary was coming straight back from Great Ridge. But if so, why had the journey taken so long? Surely he hadn't received those injuries soon after Suhawk lost sight of him? If so, the zangoose would have limped on with those wounds for over a day.
 
 But no. Some of the wounds had still been bleeding. They were quite fresh. She would just have to wait and ask from Ary himself when he woke up, assuming that the zangoose was sane when he did.
 
 "Thank you for bringing him here, Grey-eye" she told the male houndoom. Even though he was a member of the True Flame, a team with which Blazers didn't get along with that well, Grey-eye himself was a good pokemon. Perhaps, just perhaps he might one day be convinced to switch his team.
 
 "It was a pleasure" he replied, getting up and walking for the doors. "Good night."
 
 "Good night" she replied, watching the other push through the doors and vanish into the night. Sighing, she blew out the two candles that had been lighted to provide some light in the otherwise dark interior of their HQ, then walked over to the infirmary, telling Blissy that she intended to go to sleep.
 
 Receiving an acknowledgement from the chansey, still busy working inside, she turned and walked to the stairs, heading up and to her room. Getting up on the morning would be a hard battle after a night like this, but she was determined to get as much sleep as she could before facing the coming day.
 
 Below her, in the shadows under the stairs, a persian hid unseen, deep in thought.
 
-----
 
 It was almost morning before Grey-eye made it back to his house. Entering, he found the house empty, Alder having woken up and taken her leave. That wasn't unusual. The talonflame liked being up early, flying in the sky when the sun rose, ready for the prey making use of the last dark moments before the day started.
 
 But unlike usual, this time the talonflame had left something behind. At first he noticed the smell, a stinging, acrid odour which led him to the room they had spent the evening in. Inside, there was a broken pellet, the bones scattered but prominent among them a half dome like skull, obviously the marill's, with a seed balanced on top of it. The talonflame didn't digest bones, instead expelling them back out the way they came in, along with any other undigestible parts or items her prey might have had. He had asked to see her regurgitate her prey's remains before, but that had always been in the forest, hidden from anyone who might think the two of them were weird.
 
 Yet this time the talonflame had expelled the remains inside his house. The remaining acids that had followed the bones up had stained a mark on the carpet where the pile lay, explaining along with the smell why the talonflame had on earlier occasions refused to show him the act while inside his house.
 
 But this time Grey-eye was thankful for the mess, for he had realised that he hadn't thought about how to get back the used reviver seed. Somehow Alder had realised his need to retain the seed, and had left it behind before leaving.
 
 That only left Mago's seed, and the ring, which would be coming out later. Truth to be told, he really wasn't looking forward to retrieving those.
 
 He didn't have any tasks for the team this day, one of the reasons why he and Alder had chosen the last evening to meet up. The houndoom spent much of the morning walking briskly around the town or in the woods, trying to speed up the time his bowel took to pass its contents.
 
 Some time during the afternoon, after a trip to the woods, Grey-eye examined the two seeds on a low table in front of him. The silver ring Mago had had on his ear hadn't been anywhere to be seen, not despite him giving the rattata's 'remains' a thorough examination. Perhaps it would come with what remained of the bones, those taking somewhat longer to process. But the reviver seed had been easy to find, almost as if it had tried to push itself clear. In the dim light both of the seeds seemed to be glowing faintly, so faintly that it might have been just his imagination, for otherwise they still looked just like normal seeds. If it weren't for the fact that one of the two had survived acid strong enough to melt bones, he might have feared that the seeds really were just normal everyday seeds, the whole reviver thing being a cruel joke.
 
 But there the seeds lay, and Grey-eye didn't believe that he was imagining the faint glow. He had no idea how the seeds normally worked though, or what he should expect.
 
 Realising that he couldn't spend the whole day staring at the seeds, he chose to move them to the cage. However the pokemon returned, they would do so near the seeds, he believed. Thus, with the seeds in the cage, the pokemon should be as well. With one last look at the two seeds, and a fervent wish that they worked as he had been told, he left his house. He hadn't eaten anything since last evening, and was very much in mood for some fish.
 
 And after that he needed to get on with writing the beginning of his report. Bluefire would certainly ask about the experiment in tomorrows meeting.
 
-----
 
 Everything was black, the quiet unbroken. Then it was not. Suddenly he became aware of the sound of blood pumping through his veins, the rasping sound of his own breathing... and the groan that escaped his lips before he tensed in a fit of coughs.
 
 Slowly everything came into focus in his mind. His name was Mago. He was a rattata. He was... He had been... His recent memories seemed to elude him. But why was it so dark?
 
 "Because your eyes are closed, you idiot" another part of his mind answered, bringing some clarity to his confused thoughts.
 
 Slowly he opened his eyes, everything blurry at first but soon coming to focus. He was inside a cage, it seemed. Managing to turn his head, he saw that the cage was in an unlit room which walls and floor were covered with old looking carpets, tapestries, blankets and scraps of cloth. What little light there was came from an opening to the next room, where something let in some daylight. While he wasn't anywhere he remembered ever being in before, the place wasn't entirely unfamiliar either. Somewhere he had been to once, a long time ago, perhaps? And just how had he ended up in here?
 
 He felt like he had been asleep for a long time. He was also hungry. Hungrier than he had been in years, it seemed, his stomach groaning angrily. Was there anything to eat in here? Looking around, he couldn't see anything inside the cage, but soon he realised that there was something under him, pressing against his stomach.
 
 Getting up was harder than he would have thought, as his limbs seemed somehow numb. But using them soon brought back some of his strength, letting him step away from where he had been laying. The thing he had been laying on turned out to be a pair of somewhat large seeds, one cracked, one intact.
 
 Whoever had captured him could have left him more to eat, he thought. That was followed by a delayed realisation. He was indeed a captive! The cage's door was kept shut by a heavy looking steel bar, likely too heavy for him to lift. Whoever had locked him here didn't want him to leave. Still, he had to at least try once he had gotten himself fully awake.
 
 Meanwhile he might as well eat what little food he had. Picking up the intact seed, he brought it to his mouth and bit down. And winced, the seed far harder than any he had tried eating before. Trying again, more carefully, he realised that for the first time he had come across a seed with a shell too hard for his teeth to crack. Wasn't that just his luck. Or perhaps it was a cruel joke left by his kidnapper.
 
 Dropping the first seed down, he picked up the other one. It seemed similar to the first one, a tear drop shaped light brown seed not much unlike many other seeds he had seen and eaten before. But this one was cracked on one side. Perhaps that would let him crack the shell the rest of the way?
 
 Putting his incisors against the crack, he bit down. And was surprised when the seed got crushed completely. The shell he had thought hard was just a thin layer, crumbling with slightest effort. Obviously the two seeds weren't from the same plant then, despite being almost identical.
 
 Chewing on the seed, trying to make it last as long as he could, he looked around again. Nothing here but the other, too hard to crack seed. A seed which was starting to glow slightly. And getting steadily brighter. Without conscious thought, Mago found himself pressed against the cage's corner, as far away from the seed as he could. A seed which still kept getting ever brighter, forcing Mago to turn his eyes away...
 
 Until with a sharp crack, the light vanished. Blinking away the after-image from his eyes, he looked back at the seed. Which was gone, replaced by a marill. A marill laying unconscious or asleep on the floor of the cage. Just like he had...
 
 A thought pressed in his mind, a memory trying to make itself heard but not quite managing it. On a hunch, Mago moved closer to the marill, trying to see if there was anything beneath the other rodent. Nothing he could readily see, but he had to know for sure. His still weak muscles strained to move the larger pokemon, but he managed to roll it an inch or so.
 
 Beneath the blue and white pokemon there was a seed. Picking it up, Mago examined it. The seed had cracked, just like the one he had eaten had been. Like the spent reviver seed he had eaten had been.
 
 The memories came back in a rush. He was on his way back home, walking along the road. He had passed a houndoom. Suddenly something, likely the canine, had attacked him. It had taken his head in its jaws, taken him inside a building, locked him in a cage. This cage, in this room.
 
 The houndoom had left, and he had tried to lift the bar. It was indeed too heavy for him to lift. But then the houndoom returned, and had spoken to him. Had told that it planned to eat him. He was terrified. Old or not, he didn't want to be torn apart. But then the canine had told that it planned to swallow him whole.
 
 Suddenly his nightly dreams had come back to him. Dreams where he ended up surrounded by warm flesh, feeling peace and pleasure unlike any he had felt in the waking world... If he was to die, that was how it was to be. He still hadn't wanted to get eaten, naturally, but now his thoughts had been conflicted. He had asked the houndoom something. The canine had told that it liked swallowing pokemon whole. Or that was what it had meant to say, even if the words didn't quite manage to leave its lips. Grey-eye's lips, the name suddenly returned to Mago's mind.
 
 And then Grey-eye had said that he had reviver seeds.
 
 There was little doubt about it then. He might have hesitated some, but he had already set on the road down the houndoom's gullet. The talonflame had mixed things up a little. She too seemed to enjoy live prey, but unlike Grey-eye, she wasn't interested in making the meal enjoyable for her prey as well. Seemed to be more interested in making her prey suffer, rather. Grey-eye on the other hand would have let him go had he wanted to. Was that just because of the citizenship ring?
 
 His ring... Lifting a paw up to his ear, he found it hanging from where it had for several years. Was it the same ring, or were there now two? The one he had had to begin with certainly wouldn't have been digested by Grey-eye. Not unlike he himself had to have been.
 
 He had no memory of that part, thankfully. But the events before that had been just as good as he had hoped and feared them to be. Hoped, for he had had the time of his life. Feared, for repeating the experience without access to more reviver seeds would be fatal. This time permanently so.
 
 But for now there was nothing for him to do but to wait. Grey-eye would return eventually. The marill too would wake up sooner or later, and then he at least would have someone to talk to.
 
-----
 
 It was with a sense of foreboding that Grey-eye entered the True Flames HQ. The seeds had still been inert when he woke up, showing no sign that they were ever going to do anything. Further more, when he had tried to visit the Blazers HQ to see how the zangoose was doing, he had been denied entry by an unseen pokemon within the building. The pokemon in question, likely a female, he thought from the voice, had refused to explain why he couldn't enter.
 
 And now, inside his own team's HQ, he had seen the look that Bluefire had given to him when he entered the meeting room. Sitting down among the other houndoom and the few typhlosion present today, he tried to focus what Bluefire was speaking about.
 
 The meeting itself was similar to the one they had had two days ago, though this time without any interesting revelations like the reviver seeds had been. There was nothing of especial importance, though Grey-eye noticed that when the tasks for the day and the next one were dealt out, he got nothing. And indeed, once the meeting was over the shiny houndoom team leader had asked him to stay while the rest of the team left the room.
 
 "How goes your experiment?" she asked when they were alone in the room.
 
 "Well, I can confirm that the seeds themselves can survive digestion. Whether they let pokemon do so remains to be seen" Grey-eye answered, deciding to keep his own conflicted thoughts unsaid.
 
 "Well, that is something at least" the female houndoom said, though her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.
 
 For a while he waited for the blue and pale orange houndoom to speak further. But with nothing else apparently forthcoming from his team leader, he decided to take his leave. Perhaps things weren't as bad as they seemed. Giving a small bow to Bluefire in a show of reverence, he turned to walk out of the room.
 
 "Grey-eye, come back if you would?" he heard her call from behind him as he was stepping out to the hallway.
 
 Puzzled and worried, he did as she asked, returning and sitting to wait for her to tell what she had in mind. Whatever it was, it took a while for her to get to it, leaving him to squirm in place, waiting for the final howl.
 
 "I heard that you helped a certain zangoose to safely reach the Blazer's HQ last night" she said, her eyes turned towards the table she usually stood behind of while managing their meetings.
 
 "You heard about that?" Grey-eye couldn't help asking. There hadn't been more than one eye witness to the whole thing, and he doubted that the shiny houndoom dealt with . Who had told the shiny houndoom what had taken place?
 
 "I hear a lot. Not just within this building, but elsewhere too" Bluefire replied, referring to the common saying that nothing could happen in the True Flame HQ without the leader hearing about it. "Why did you do it? He attacked you. He was wounded. He had no ring on him. It was well after the visiting time. It would have been easy for you to kill him, and no-one would have argued."
 
 That hadn't even occurred to Grey-eye. Indeed, most of the houndoom in town would likely have taken their chance at having an easy meal. Many would also have taken great joy in toying with the zangoose before killing him, though to their disappointment Ary would have neither shown any fear nor begged for mercy. And Grey-eye realised that he himself had in the past enjoyed the suffering of many of his prey, just like the other houndoom would have.
 
 And yet, he had automatically helped the zangoose. And he likely wouldn't be able to enjoy torturing any of his meals in the future, either. It... It really wasn't normal. Was something wrong with him? Looking back up, not having noticed that he had allowed his gaze to fall to his toes, he found Bluefire looking him straight in the eyes.
 
 "I see" was all that Firefoot said, a neutral expression frozen on her face, before walking past him and leaving the room herself.
 
 Leaving Grey-eye sitting there for some time, fairly certain that he indeed wouldn't be a member of the True Flames for long any more.
 
-----
 
 The marill was company, sure. But mostly annoying, panicky company. His name was Tomento. At first he had been just confused, but once he remembered what had taken place the previous day, the marill had had a total meltdown. Clearly the water mouse had no interest towards being swallowed whole. More of the opposite really. And no amount of convincing would make the marill believe that everything was okay now. No, Tomento was certain that he would soon be eaten again, and again, and again, having to suffer through all the horror all over again every time.
 
 So Mago mainly lay against the cage's wall, trying to ignore the marill while he waited for Grey-eye to return. Luckily the wait wasn't overly long.
 
 First the two rodents heard the outer door creak open, followed by it closing. Then a male houndoom walked in the room, a houndoom with familiar grey eyes.
 
 "Mago! Thank Arceus, I was so worried!" Grey-eye barked the moment he saw the rattata.
 
 "Grey-eye! I hope you enjoyed the meal" the rattata managed to say, having thought about something to say when he saw the houndoom.
 
 "You were amazing. But I'm afraid I was too worried afterwards to enjoy you for long. But never mind that. Are you okay?" the houndoom asked, moving close to the cage and looking the rattata over.
 
 But the marill had had too much. Without warning he fired a blast of water at Grey-eye, hitting him square between the eyes and knocking the houndoom over. Reacting on instinct, Mago tackled Tomento against the cage's back, stopping the water mouse from firing off another blast.
 
 "Thanks, Mago" Grey-eye thanked the rattata, getting back up while shaking his head. "It wasn't that strong of an attack, but well aimed and definitely unexpected." It seemed pointless to even mention the obvious type advantage.
 
 "Sorry, I should have seen it coming" the rattata apologised. "Tomento here hasn't really calmed down after... popping back" he finished with a shrug, the term as good as any.
 
 "Not your fault. Tomento, is it?" the houndoom asked, sitting in front of the cage with a somber expression. "I aren't going to apologise for you getting eaten by Alder, for that is just how things go. But I do apologise for having you wake up in a cage. I unfortunately had to ensure that I could see you having come back okay" Grey-eye explained, seemingly sincerely.
 
 "But she ate me! I remember it. I remember my skin starting to burn. I remember the foul stuff getting in my mouth. I remember your voice too! You were fucking the talonflame while I was dying inside her!" Tomento cried, from somewhere between hysteria and defiance.
 
 "Well, like I said, pokemon get eaten all the time. What I think you should concentrate on is what happens from now on" Grey-eye bid the marill to change focus, ignoring most of the protest.
 
 "I know what will happen. Either you or she will eat me again. I won't let you!" the water mouse yelled, only for Mago to knock him down again before he could try attacking the houndoom again.
 
 "No, just listen. You know about Coneridge's visiting time thing, right?" Grey-eye asked, motioning for Mago to let the marill get back up.
 
 "I... I do" Tomento confirmed, sounding slightly calmer for now.
 
 "Good. Right now it is morning, about an hour or two before midday. As soon as the bell sounds that it is midday, you can simply walk out of here. That's all I have planned for you" the houndoom told the marill.
 
 "Really?" Tomento asked, looking doubtful.
 
 "Really" was all the canine said back.
 
 For a while it was quiet, the houndoom and marill staring at each other. Then, giving a theatrical cough, Mago turned to Tomento. "You can trust him. You weren't able to see, but I was there last evening. You can trust this particular houndoom."
 
 "You were there? Why?" the marill asked from the other rodent, looking suspicious.
 
 "He was my meal" Grey-eye interjected.
 
 "A willing one" Mago added. Seeing the marill's stunned expression, he continued "I knew I would be okay. Besides, he would have let me go at any time had I wanted to" he said, motioning towards the houndoom.
 
 To that the marill said nothing. But after a while of looking between the houndoom and the rattata, he did turn away and sit down, before the other two heard him begin sobbing quietly.
 
 Taking that as a sign that things had calmed down, Grey-eye took and lifted the bar keeping the cage's door closed. "Feel free to walk around. But until the bell tolls it would be wise to remain inside the house" he told the marill. "Also, I have some berries stored in my closet. Just a moment and I'll have them here."
 
 Saying that, the houndoom left the two rodents alone in the room, with a free path to the outer door, should they choose to use it.
 
-----
 
 As he rummaged around in his closet, Grey-eye couldn't help but think about the marill. The alarm and pain he had been able to sense coming from Tomento had hurt him too. Seeing how badly the prey really could suffer from getting eaten alive made it even less likely that he would be able to swallow living pokemon again. Not unless they were willing.
 
 Mago seemed to be fully okay. That was a big relief, in so many ways. And surprisingly, the rattata seemed to be in a good mood too. Clearly getting swallowed alive wasn't horrible in itself. Most of the terror probably came from the helplessness, lack of choice and inability to trust the eater, as well as the digestion kicking in, naturally, were the prey still awake at that point.
 
 In Alder's case, such feelings would be fully justified, Grey-eye had to admit. The bird did like the suffering of her prey, making sure they stayed conscious as long as possible. Yet the talonflame had seemed a perfect match to him just two days ago. Now he wasn't so certain. Sure, they could still have fun together. But the kind of meetings they had used to have in the past, with two or more terrified prey waiting to die, was a thing from the past. How Alder would take the news was something Grey-eye feared to hear. Clearly she would have preferred that things wouldn't change. But could she ever see things the way that he had suddenly started seeing them?
 
 Well, at least the bag of assorted berries was still here. They weren't fresh, having been dried to make them last, but they would still taste reasonably good. And he also found something he hadn't even remembered having, namely a small bag of wheat. Apparently it could somehow be used to flavour cooking meat, though he hadn't ever gotten to trying it. No matter, now he had quests who would likely enjoy having something to eat.
 
 And he found himself wanting to have Mago remember this visit fondly.